After having a pretty uneventful week between staying at Whistler, and especially Kamloops, we decided to rearrange our schedule and get back to Vancouver instead of going to Kelowna. I guess we'll never know if Kelowna had anything good to offer, but we certainly made the most of our added time in Vancouver and Seattle.

We stayed at a house in downtown Vancouver with one of Stanzi’s brother’s friends and some other people that lived there too. This included 2 cats that were hilarious. One of them was psychotic... constantly needing attention and then freaking out when you tried to leave the house. Thankfully it had been declawed as it would have scratched the hell out of my legs every time we went out!

Our first day out we went to Granville Island again as we wanted to have a nice lunch there, which ended up being a huge Chinese. It’s such a beautiful area along the Canada waterfont and it’s great to eat lunch outside in the sun and listen to some live music too. From there we went to walk off the calories, but took a small "Aquabus" further downtown so we could get some nice pictures of the 'Glass City’ and then walk around the Olympic Village. The Village consisted of 13 buildings which had been used during the 2010 Winter Olympics to house athletes. Now, disappointingly, it seems they are barely used for anything, although it looks like the city is trying to attract retail to the area. Probably not the “Legacy” that you would want from hosting an Olympic Games, I sure hope London does better after 2012.

The next day we first drove out to a nature park in North Vancouver which had a pretty cool suspension bridge you can walk over. From the bridge you can see a small waterfall and river below you, and it’s great fun imagining the bridge breaking as it sways and bounces from all the people (Japanese Tourists) walking across it!

Unfortunately the Vancouver rain started to come down so any other plans we had got washed out... but every rain-filled cloud has a treat-filled lining. We went for a small lunch at McDonalds, went back to the house, walked to a Thomas Haas chocolate shop, and got ourselves two of the strongest cups of Cocoa ever! Just sat outside with our hot chocolates and watched the rain come down on the passing traffic.

Good times became great times after that as we went for a beer for the first time in ages at a nice local pub near the house. It had great Guinness and nice wine, good food, and eventually... karaoke! We would have done it but the Vancouver public were way too good for us so I’m afraid you wont find any embarrasing videos of us singing here. Nor will you find any pictures of us the next morning when we departed Vancouver (and Canada) feeling very rough around the edges. Thanks for helping us leave Canada on a high pub who’s name I dont remember!